Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron 1800–1859

Epitaph on a Jacobite

MacaulayT

TO my true king I offer’d free from stain

Courage and faith: vain faith, and courage vain.

For him, I threw lands, honors, wealth, away,

And one dear hope, that was more priz’d than they.

For him I languish’d in a foreign clime,

Gray-hair’d with sorrow in my manhood’s prime;

Heard on Lavernia Scargill’s whispering trees,

And pin’d by Arno for my lovelier Tees;

Beheld each night my home in fever’d sleep,

Each morning started from the dream to weep;

Till God, who saw me tried too sorely, gave

The resting place I ask’d, an early grave.

Oh thou, whom chance leads to this nameless stone

From that proud country which was once mine own,

By those white cliffs I never more must see,

By that dear language which I spake like thee,

Forget all feuds, and shed one English tear

O’er English dust. A broken heart lies here.